


Five Times River Song Visited Her Parents

by coralysendria



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralysendria/pseuds/coralysendria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times River visited Amy and Rory after "The Angels Take Manhattan."  Spoilers for that episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times River Song Visited Her Parents

I.

"This is ridiculous," Amy said. "He's not coming. He told me we would never see him again."

Rory shrugged. "It's tradition. We did it when we thought he was dead, too."

In the ten years since they had begun living in the New York of the past, they had discarded many things, including the hope of ever seeing the Doctor again. But the Christmas place setting, a tradition they had begun when they were first married, remained. 

Christmas carols played softly on the radio in the parlor. The tree looked odd without fairy lights; such things existed, but Rory and Amy had judged them to be too expensive.

While Amy checked the dessert, Rory quietly added a second setting, just in case River showed up this year. Their daughter remained as unpredictable as ever; and they could never be quite sure when she might pop in or where she would be in her own life when she did.

A knock at the door interrupted Rory's thoughts. Amy poked her head out of the kitchen, her expression half-excited and half-scared. In her heart of hearts, she still hoped that somehow, the Doctor would appear. 

"I'll get it." Amy nodded and ducked back into the kitchen.

The door swung open to reveal possibly the last person Rory would have expected: his father. Peeping over Brian's shoulder was River, of course.

"Hello, Rory," Brian said, holding out his hand for a manly handshake.

"Dad!" Rory cried. Ignoring the hand, he flung himself at his father. "Oh, Dad, I'm so glad to see you."

Brian patted his son's back. "It's good to see you, too, Rory."

Rory's eyes were wet with tears when, still in his father's embrace, he looked up at River. "Thank you," he mouthed at her.

She nodded, her own eyes suspiciously bright, but all she said was, "It's a bit cold out here, don't you think?"

"Er, yeah, of course," Rory said, extricating himself. "Come in, you two. Come in. Dinner's almost ready."

"I didn't know it was Christmas," Brian said, taking in the tree and the softly-playing carols. "I'd've brought you a gift."

"And that's why I didn't tell you," River said. "We can't have items from the future cluttering up the past. It makes archaeologists ever so cross."

"River? Is that you?" Amy called from the kitchen.

"Ye-es," River sang out, drawing the short word into two syllables.

Amy walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. She stopped dead and the towel fluttered to the floor when she saw who River had brought with her. Just as Rory had done, she flung herself into her father-in-law's arms. 

"Easy, now, my dear," he said. "Don't knock an old man down."

"Old? You're not old," Amy scoffed. "Look at you!" She held him at arm's length, smiling. "In this house, we don't count anyone as old until they're at least five hundred!"

There was a momentary silence as Amy realized what she had said. She glanced at Rory, her brows wrinkled with an old pain. He looked calmly back at her.

"And, River!" Amy smiled brightly and held out her hands to her daughter. "Thank you for bringing him." She tipped her head and frowned slightly.

River laughed. "Yes, Mother. He knows."

"You can imagine my surprise," Brian said, chuckling.

The timer in the kitchen buzzed. "The turkey!" Amy dropped River's hands and dashed back into the kitchen.

River picked up the towel, lying forgotten on the floor. "I'll go help Mother, and the two of you can catch up," she said, leaving Rory and Brian alone in the dining room.

~*~

"The Doctor was good enough to come and tell me what had happened to you himself," Brian said later, "but I honestly don't understand why he can't just bring you back to where you belong."

Rory shrugged. "Apparently it would cause universe-ending paradoxes or something of that nature," he said. "We've already lived through the end of the universe a few times. Eventually, you just want to rest. Besides," here he stopped and looked at Amy, "I think we're happy here."

Amy nodded. "It was hard at first -- we _really_ missed our cellphones -- but we adapted."

"How long have you been here?"

Amy drew breath to answer, but River spoke quickly. "Spoilers." She shook her head slightly.

Amy nodded. "A while," she said, instead.

Brian looked from River to Amy and back and smiled slightly. "You don't need to protect me, you two. I do understand. When River takes me home again, I will simply have to pretend that you have gone to live in India. Or Mars. It would be easier that way, I think, than to consider...." His voice trailed off, as he realized exactly what he was going to have to consider when he returned to the twenty-first century. But he brightened again immediately. "So what's for dessert?"

After dessert, after coffe, after washing-up, and Christmas carols in the parlor, River stood. "Come on, Granddad. Time to be getting back."

"So soon?" he protested, but he stood nevertheless. He opened his arms and both Amy and Rory rushed into his embrace. "It has been so good being here with you. I have missed you. And I love you both. Remember that."

"We love you too, Dad," Rory whispered.

They released each other and backed away at the same time, their faces wet. Brian took River's arm.

"You're welcome any time you can get River to bring you," Amy called as River fiddled with the settings on her vortex manipulator.

Brian's answering smile disappeared in the flash of the vortex manipulator's activation. Amy and Rory sat in the parlor for a long time afterward.

II.

"There's something you have to do for me, Mother," River said. "And for the Doctor."

Amy looked at River in surprise. "The Doctor? After all this time?" 

"It hasn't been that long."

Amy's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps not for you, River, but for Rory and me, it's been twenty years."

River shrugged. "This had to wait. It's about the book. I need for you to write an epilogue."

"But the book was published years ago!"

Amy had written a number of Melody Malone mysteries over the years. River had written the first one, of course, but declared afterward that she just didn't have the time what with pursuing her studies -- and the Doctor -- to write any other entries in the series, so Amy took over. But _the_ book always referred to that first one, the one that the Doctor had been reading on that fateful trip to New York.

"Mother, Mother, Mother. You know that doesn't matter. You told me to make sure that the Doctor wasn't left on his own. He's not likely, at this point, to listen to me. But he will _always_ listen to you. Please, Mother?"

Amy was silent for a moment. "He ripped out the last page," she said, at last. "He won't even read it."

"Yes," River said, "he will. Amy, please."

River only ever addressed Amy by her name when her request was truly important. She nodded. "All right. Go downstairs and talk to Rory, and let me think."

Her daughter nodded and left Amy's study. Amy sat down at her desk, and after a moment's thought, began to write.

 

III.

"Hello, Mother."

Amy looked up from her typewriter, where she was struggling with a scene in her latest novel. Crumpled papers lay strewn all over the floor. "I miss my computer," she grumbled, even as she rose stiffly from her chair to hug River.

"I can't help you there, Mother." She pretended not to be surprised at Amy's stiffness, or that her hair now held no hint of the fiery color of her youth.

Amy eyed her daughter, not in the least deceived. "Where are you now, River?"

River smiled, that particular smile that meant she had just seen the Doctor. "He took me to the Singing Towers of Darillium. It was a wonderful night. Wonderful." She sighed. "I have a job coming up, and I'm not certain how long it'll take or when I'll be able to get back, so there was something I wanted to do first. Where's Dad?"

"Downstairs. I think he said he was going to change the spark plugs in the car."

"Oh, good. There's somewhere we need to go." She refused to say where, however, only sitting in the back seat and directing Rory where to turn.

They ended in a cold, dark back alley miles from home. River slid out of the car, and Rory and Amy followed. Rory looked around. "River, what--?"

But River was gone. Amy and Rory looked at one another, then became aware of voices not too far away.

"Little girl? Are you sick?"

"I'm dying," a child's voice answered matter-of-factly. "But I can fix it." A sudden golden light appeared, a light that Amy and Rory had seen before.

Amy, her heart pounding, looked at Rory. As one, they ran in that direction. They were just in time to see the light fade away. A small, delicate child folded to the pavement.

"Melody!" Amy sobbed. "Melody!"

Rory knelt next to the child, his hand automatically checking her pulse. "She's all right." He gathered the small body in his arms and staggered to his feet. "Come on, let's get her home."

When the child opened her eyes a few hours later, tucked up in a warm bed, her parents were there, smiling down at her. They were older than the few photos she had been allowed to have, but they were still her parents.

"Melody?" her mother said, her voice trembling. "Melody, are you all right?"

"Mother? Mother, you found me!"

Amy hugged her daughter tightly. "Of course we did. Oh, Melody, I'm so sorry! All those years. I never meant to hurt you. But it'll be all right. It really will be all right."

In response, her daughter only nestled closer to her, while grateful tears ran down her face.

IV.

Amy began speaking before the light of the vortex manipulator had even died away. "I knew it was coming, of course," she said, as River stepped up beside her and took her arm. "I never forgot that gravestone."

She jerked her chin at it, then raised her eyes to the spot where the TARDIS would so briefly sit in a time yet to come. She looked behind herself with a shiver, but the Angel wasn't there. Not yet. Or maybe she would never see it, now that its work was done. She looked back down at the mounded dirt of the fresh grave. When they set the sod, she'd have to come back and plant flowers, maybe. Had there been flowers?

"I'm sorry I wasn't here for the funeral, Mother," River said softly. 

Amy waved a negligent hand. "You couldn't be here, dear. You didn't leave until the next morning. And don't say 'spoilers' at me like you were going to. We both know you remember it, that you remember showing us where to find you in 1970."

Amy turned to look at her daughter, who was smiling. "Actually, no, Mother. I never did know how you found me then. I was just so happy that you did."

"And now you're off to be Mels for a few years," Amy said. "What caused that regeneration?"

"They left me alone for a while, but after the funeral, they summoned me. I'm not certain what they did to trigger the regeneration, but then I was in Leadworth." River shrugged. "It was all a very long time ago, Mother. The memory dims."

"How much time do I have, River?" 

"Oh, Mother. You know I'm not going to answer that question."

"I keep seeing him, you know," Amy said. "Well, not him, precisely. The ones before him, really. I've been keeping track. It's much easier now that the Internet is back. Well, more or less; it'll be a few years before I can just go to Google."

"I should imagine so," River murmured. "But why, Mother? You know you can't see him or talk to him."

"I actually had a thought about keeping track of his other companions for him. There was a young journalist some years back that I thought I'd heard him mention occasionally; I was going to write to her."

"Sarah Jane Smith? Yes, she was a favorite of his -- long before we met him, though."

"I want you to write out a list of them for me, River. And their addresses. Whatever time I have left, I want to be as close to the Doctor as I can. And I have some other letters I'm going to need you to deliver for me."

River sighed. "All right, Mother. Where have you left the car? I'll take you home."

"Will you stay with me a few days, River? Please? I don't think I want to be alone for a while."

"Of course, Mother. I can stay for a few days."

"Thank you, dear. All right. Let's go home." She didn't look back as River helped her down to the car.

V.

It was difficult, at first, very difficult. Amy and Rory found themselves back in 1938, though later in the year, after the destruction of the Angels. No more paradoxes to rescue them. They had no money, no identification, and no place to live. They had to sell their wedding rings and resort to shelters at first. Rory wasn't able to prove his nursing qualifications, so he had to take a job as a stevedore. Amy worked in a restaurant as a waitress.

They had just managed to move out of the shelter into a tiny apartment when River showed up.

"Hello, Mother, Dad. Sorry it took me so long; I had some trouble finding you. I hoped the Angel only dragged you back this far; if it had been farther, I might have lost you for good."

She pressed a briefcase into Rory's hands. "There you go."

"What's this?"

" _That_ is everything you need to get you established here as something other than a day laborer," she said. "Nursing qualifications from a good school, the deed to a property not too far from here, and some cash."

Rory frowned. "River, where did you get this?"

River laughed. "Don't worry, Dad. I didn't murder anyone for it. No, it's all honestly come by. I went and introduced myself to my granddad, and between the two of us, we sold your things in 2012 -- sorry about the car, Dad, I know how much you loved it. There are a few things in there that I thought you'd want, so I brought them. Pictures and so forth."

"Thank you, River," Amy said, as Rory opened the briefcase. He sorted through the papers inside, then drew out a velvet pouch. 

"What's this?"

"Open it," River answered.

Something clinked inside. Rory opened it and shook the contents into his hand, making a slight choking noise when he saw them. "River! How did you ever find them?" He held out his hand to Amy; sitting in his palm were their wedding rings and her engagement ring.

"Oh, I'm just that good," River said, buffing her nails, and examining them critically.

"Thank you, River," Amy said. She took her rings from Rory and slipped them onto her fingers. "Thank you so much."


End file.
